just like a stone, not a lover
by JannP
Summary: For all his broken pieces and parts, the fractured segments rolling around like a broken mirror in his head all the time, the strongest divide he's ever felt was between what he wanted and what he deserved. Oliver-central internal thoughts on mainly Felicity, his major relationships and other things, mid-s3 oneshot. (Set right after Felicity shut him down hard.)


**A/N: I have about eight million responsibilities so latching onto a new fandom makes sense. This show has grabbed me, though I'm only about halfway through season three. This is just an internal perspective from Oliver in the episode I just watched and I've watched so many straight I'm not totally positive which one. He's so emotional and such a mess I think it's fun to deconstruct. Please let me know if you think I did him justice. Thank you for reading and/or reviewing if you do that.**

 **Inspiration and title from the song "Sideache" by Flannel Graph.**

 **Disclaimer: Don't own it.**

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 **just like a stone, not a lover**

 _I don't want to be a woman you love._

The words are actually a little bit of a refreshing loop, different from the crap that's usually circulating in his head. With her clearing out, and Digg rightfully occupied with his real life, he has a moment of quiet. Well, really it should be called alone-time. His head is never quiet and solitude is way too graceful of a word, a beautiful feeling he's has glimpses of, heard rumors about. He's never felt it himself and he's pretty sure he isn't about to start.

He certainly doesn't feel it now, but he's also alone with those words and these thoughts. If they weren't so exhausting, he'd he tempted to sleep them out. Now, though, he knows all he'd do is dream the things she dangled in front of him. Each one was a stab of truth more painful than the last, more painful than any sword that's ever run him through or any arrow that's found its mark in him.

Internally and only to himself, he can admit he's never felt _sufficient_. That's the basis of the guilt that gnaws at him constantly, nipping at his heels and spurning his always-running feet. He's mastered the art of doing two things at once, but he never does either of them particularly well and it constantly eats him alive. His laundry list of solid failures and faults look suspiciously like his body count, nearly every one attached to a name of someone he's cared for or wanted to protect. Felicity ticked down that list, ripped through it in a matter of seconds. She cuts through his bullshit like it's an art form and she's a sculptor, building his conscience of clay that stays soft and then using it to knock him clean to the ground.

He isn't even sure he could say Laurel was the first he destroyed. There may not have been a true first to the women he's destroyed, through distraction, misguided effort, or fear. Laurel was the first to think he was capable, who didn't label him a disappointment. She was the first to see exactly what he was capable of doing without a second thought (not exactly true) to someone he loved. He loved what she represented and who she was trying to be, though, more than who _he_ was. Their whole problem was he always second-guessed if he deserved her, second-guessed the way he felt about her. He doesn't form typical attachments to most people, instead taking them for granted until they aren't around anymore. He always values them in hindsight, and it seems like it's proportional to his inability to say it. He valued her in the beginning on the island, when he'd never felt more far away from her. He wasn't enough of a man to be with her and give himself over to her when she was there in front of him, planning for it and asking him to. He could only reflect, think of her, carry her picture, and keep it in the back of his mind while he went about the business of trying not to die because he wasn't ready to live.

Maybe that's the heart of his issue. He's had years of people telling him how they want him to die or where they want him to go. All of it deserved and he feels selfish for the fact that he can't manage to die like he sometimes accepts he will.

Sara seemed to understand. She didn't want his promises. She wanted his fight, his grit, and his dedication to her sister. She probably even wanted the comfort of him there, real and solid and easy on judgement as well as the eyes, the same way he wanted that from her. They didn't have to talk often because they expressed their tension with sticks and battle. Everything else could be diluted with sex. She didn't want him to save her but it still feels like failure that he couldn't do it anyway. If he couldn't save her, he's pretty sure there's no one who can save _him_. There's no one else he can let in without somehow ruining them and the loss of companionship is probably the most empty he's ever felt, the most insufficient and ineffectual.

He still doesn't entirely know what to do with that.

For all his broken pieces and parts, the fractured segments rolling around like a broken mirror in his head all the time, the strongest divide he's ever felt was between what he wanted and what he deserved.

He never deserved Laurel. He never deserved Sara. He probably doesn't deserve Thea, or his mother's devotion and courage. For all her faults, he knew his mother loved him. He knows Thea does, but he doesn't deserve that ether because she's a good person and he's done some seriously awful things. The worst part about doing those things is that he cared less and less with each one.

Isabel, Helena, Queen's Gambit—the only women he's ever deserved are solely because of the misery they've brought. He deserves that, deserves loneliness and probably worse.

The three sorest spots, though, are reserved for Sara and two women who are still alive. McKenna is strong and resilient but without all the damage that colors him so darkly, and his cohorts if he's honest. She may have only made it out of their relationship because Helena strong armed her out of it, but it would've happened sooner or later. It probably would've been more painful because she probably would have been dead. This way, she can use her resilience to bounce back because she'll be far away from him and his inherent dangers.

Felicity never stood that chance. She saved herself tonight. He knows it, he knows she knows it, and watching her face while she gave up on him will probably be something that sticks with him for a while.

She gave him hope something could eventually change, though, taught him there's a sharp line between what he wants and how he's living. For a moment, it seemed possible. He could at least feel something beyond a desire to protect. He's long wanted to keep her safe, sure, but somewhere along the way she became a partner in lighter things, like hope and possibility.

In short, she made a fool out of him. He lost focus and got blindsided and he shouldn't be surprised because this isn't the first time. It's the worst, though, and he knew that when he watched her walk away.

The thing about being partners in everything though, in trusting her with some of those dark and fragile pieces, is he can't actually be rid of her and he doesn't want to. He just knows it's going to stab perpetual wounds and tug on the stitches he manages to sew between now and the next time he needs her. He relies on her too much for there not to be a next time.

Part of his own resilience, the part he's had a lot of practice developing, flexes like a muscle. He's down in the basement of Verdant without purposeful movements. He was busy dying some level of emotional death and muscle memory got him here. In any precarious stage of injury, his body somehow gets him where he needs to go.

Well, except the one time when it dropped him down the face of a mountain like a broken sack of lead. That's probably at least a little of what got him into this position. Different kind of not-knowing-how, but the same end result.

He's staring at her computer monitors, knowing she'll be back and grateful for it but dreading it all the same. She wasn't giving up on their team, on saving the city, or even giving up on the Arrow. No, that's a special honor reserved for Oliver Queen. The only woman who never fully gave up on him took a sword through the chest for him after a cavalcade of lies and disappointment had put their relationship on a precarious edge. There are so many things he never got to tell her. It was another night when his last shred of faith in something was severed.

It's easy to be driven by vengeance or love or fear. Anger will work for a while, but it eventually fades into something else, envy or resignation or a lot of other things that take away its true power. Disappointment can turn into motivation, as can pain or even sometimes loneliness.

A heavy load of guilt, fiery demons, and nothing to hold onto - those don't motivate. _Nothing_ doesn't multiply successfully. Once there's nothing, it just sort of stays nothing. It sounds like a twist on an age old conundrum. He isn't a tree in a forest, but if no one believes in him or his future anymore, does that mean he (or it) doesn't exist?

Why does that terrify him or make him feel as empty as he does? Why does it make him swipe everything off the desk? She'll be pissed when she gets here tomorrow and sees but she probably won't say anything. Her lips will purse together, she'll look straight through him, and she'll go back to work. That's what true indifference looks like and he'll have to find a way to bear every second of it silently. He sort of made the choice for both of them because for one second, for a month when he was almost dead, he believed that what he wanted and what he deserved might be the same thing for once.

He was wrong. He's wrong a lot. Emptying her desk of its smaller and less expensive contents didn't really help. Smashing computers won't help because she'll cry and he doesn't have the money to replace them.

Roy asking if he's okay is the first thing, besides thinking he shouldn't smash any tech, or people, that registers with him. The second thing that registers is that he shouldn't have done anything as aggressive as that side swipe because he isn't a hundred percent yet and his chest is on fire where it was stabbed through. He isn't sure that'll ever completely heal and he still hasn't actually told anyone it happened. It'll just be one more secret he keeps because, at this point, what is one more? No one is left to care, he's successfully pushed them away, and he doesn't want to sound like a whiner anyway.

There are seconds where he thinks he and Roy understand one another with a single glance. No, they don't know much about each other by way of personal details. He knows the loss of Thea put Roy into a lonely place in his young life, a place Oliver can't fill but can at least cover with midnight missions, training, mentoring, and never giving up on the guy. Doing those things covers some of the same gaping wounds in Oliver, so he leads them both to a place that's a little less broken and a little more like a family they don't understand because they're on the outside of it.

God, Digg is so happy at home with Lyla and Sara. Oliver wonders if Digg knows everything about him changes when he's at home with his girls. It's good to see that, out of those who are most deserving, at least one of the good guys is getting what he deserves and needs. It feels good to be around someone (two someones because Lyla is no stranger to turbulence herself) who has their broken pieces mended together into a lovely patchwork of family and warmth.

Feeling good wears off too soon, though. He metabolizes it faster, just like he does painkillers, because he tends to burn through anything like relief faster than he should. He needs so much, and isn't sufficient to temper the need by himself, and it's exhausting.

Once he manages to escape by assuring Digg he's okay, despite the way his partner absolutely doesn't look convinced, he tries the salmon ladder for the first time since his return. He can't really do it, and can feel something tear in the fragile muscles that used to be strong before they were severed by Ra's al Guhl's sword. It's a frustration he knows what to do with though, which is a nice change of pace from all the emotional ones he's clueless about handling. He turns his attention to the post in the corner, using sticks to improvise for the swords he only sort of knows how to wield. He moves at half speed to avoid hurting himself more than he's already done tonight, but his stamina is substantially weakened and it doesn't take long to wear himself out completely. The 'penicillin tea' is nearly gone but it's the last push he needs to fall asleep.

Though he's too exhausted to think or function, there's resolution in the back of his mind. Felicity was always meant for the 'more' she wants; it's a fact. She was always going to leave him at some point. Without something like love, or that fierce pride in her strength and intelligence, clouding his approach-he'll be better on the other side of his goals. He won't have such a split focus if one of his essential truths isn't on the table anymore. It won't change, but he can put it away, he can steel himself for the fight ahead of him and he can focus on one truth. He'll be better when she's gone, at least at some things, and at this point he'll take what he can get. If he can do one thing well, it might be enough. If he can untangle the mess his sister is in, it'll be worth it, worth all he's given up. If they can recover, it doesn't matter if he can; he was a mess to begin with. This was always more about them specifically and the city in general. He doesn't dream at all, though. He just sleeps, so maybe he's onto something.

(If only he actually had hope left to put into that.)


End file.
